Recapturing the revolutionary spirit

If we’re ever going to make the U.S. government responsive to the will of the people, it’s going to take a revolution.

I don’t necessarily mean a violent, armed clash between patriots who still believe in self-government and the forces of the U.S. Defense Department. But I do mean a real revolution. Nothing short of that can save us from tyranny, despotism and slavery. It’s just a matter of time.

Thomas Jefferson understood that we’d need a revolution every 20 years or so to keep government in check.

Even 100 years later, President Theodore Roosevelt saw what was happening to America – how it was sliding down what is a familiar road to students of history.

“The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all,” he said. “When the sturdy Roman plebian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows joined in war the terrible Roman legion, had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it. The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing.”

Does that sound familiar?

Does it sound like America in the year 2001?

The Constitution is today little more than a historical relic. The basis for the rule of law in America has been twisted and perverted beyond recognition. The document once understood by farmers, ranchers and other ordinary people is now interpreted by lawyers and judges to mean, in many cases, just the opposite of what it says.

Too many of the American people have been bought off – by comfort, by complacency, by busyness, by disinformation, by manipulation and by a process of deliberate dumbing down in a government-run educational system and by a semi-official corporate media establishment.

Nothing short of revolution can save us now.

What do I mean by revolution?

I mean people must take control of their government, once again – not beginning with their elected representatives in Washington, but right in their own backyard. The focus needs to be on town councils, school boards, county commissions, planning boards, zoning boards, etc.

That’s where the next great rebellion must start. If self-governing citizens cannot demand accountability at that level, there is little hope of expecting it from members of Congress. And there is little hope of greater victories that would fundamentally redefine the scope of Washington’s authority over our lives.

Such a rebellion is under way in a few places in America – including one rather unlikely community. Tomorrow, the next phase of this rebellion takes place in Klamath Falls, Ore., a sleepy rural area on the border of two states known for their advanced stages of socialism and top-down style of “we know better than you” government.

I’m talking about what is being called the “Convoy of Tears” – in which thousands of freedom-loving people travel from three different states to bring supplies and donations to beleaguered farmers in the Klamath Basin on the California-Oregon state line. A “Freedom Day” rally is being held tomorrow when these convoys converge.

The organizers recognize they are in a war – a war of ideas, a war of lifestyles, a war of philosophy, a war of world visions, a war of spiritual dimensions, and a war every bit as real and important as the War for Independence launched in 1776.

It’s a war that won’t be won if we try to wage it only through letters to congressmen. It’s a war that won’t be won by electing the right officials in Washington. It’s a war that won’t be won only by complaining. But it is a war that can be won if people recognize the problem and begin acting at the local level – as the heroes of Klamath Falls are doing.

It’s time for people to awaken to the grave threats to our liberties. They understand in Klamath Falls. And maybe – just maybe – they can help rekindle the torch of freedom for all Americans. Maybe they can help us all to understand, again. Maybe they represent the vanguard of the next American revolution.